


how this story ends

by stillhumanz



Category: Gloomverse (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, spoilers for the magic show!, this could potentially be read as shippy but idk take it how you want lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-13 23:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16482053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillhumanz/pseuds/stillhumanz
Summary: The walk through the hospital halls seems to last too long, and yet Assistant still wishes she had longer to prepare for what’s waiting at the end.





	how this story ends

The walk through the hospital halls seems to last too long, and yet Assistant still wishes she had longer to prepare for what’s waiting at the end.

She passes through like a ghost, drifting past the other patients who no doubt recognise her from the magic show, whose eyes ask too many questions as their gazes drift down to her leg and the crutches that are the only thing holding her up. She knows why, has seen the pictures and reports that cry over her condition while slandering Wallis in the same breath and-

And Wallis.

Who’s half the country away, all too aware of the things people- reporters, average citizens, even the goddamn _ president-  _ have said about him. Assistant has to wonder how much Wallis knows, if his curiosity had gotten him as far as Assistant’s had, to the papers that wish indescribable things upon him as if they hadn’t been endlessly praising him just days before. As if this situation somehow makes him less of a person and more a _ thing,  _ a punching bag for all their anger because how  _ dare  _ he. How dare he show some actual compassion and help somebody because noone else would.

And now he can’t show his face here.

Now he can’t be here to see her.

Assistant feels red-hot anger boil beneath her skin at the thought, and speeds up a bit as if she could run from the memory of his voice, choked-off with a sob that had collapsed into the static of the cheap radio. For the few minutes before Assistant had forced out a quiet goodbye, Wallis’ cries and Purple trying to comfort him had faded in and out, fighting against the black that kept creeping into Assistant’s mind. Because she’d been helpless and still is, reduced to breakdowns in her hospital bed and being too much of a coward to go see her, while Wallis just waits for the day they finally tell him she’s really  _ gone. _

And truthfully, Assistant doesn’t know how long it’ll take. How long they’ll try to put it off, clinging onto her like a dying heartbeat. Because they know she’s not coming back, they know there’s no chance of her suddenly waking up one day.

Maybe they just need to let go.

Assistant tightens the grip on her crutches, leaning on the wall to wait out the wave of nausea that suddenly crashes into her. A nurse, bustling around, asks her if she’s okay but she just waves it off. Opens her mouth to speak only to find herself clamping a hand over it, nearly falling over as she does. The nurse is at her side in an instant, babbling on about how she really shouldn’t be walking around in this state.

But Assistant tells the nurse who she’s here to see (just a friend,  _ just a friend)  _ and the air stills, as well as the nurse. Her smile tightens, hold around Assistant’s waist becoming suffocating, and her sympathetic glance just makes her feel even worse.

They walk down the hall anyway, silence weighing down on them until Assistant’s world is forced down to the space in front of her, the end of the hallway that she can only wish isn’t there. But there’s no putting it off this time, no excuses that she feels ill or just  _ doesn’t feel up to it. _

Because the nurse leaves with another tight smile and Assistant’s on her own, with only her thoughts and what’s beyond that door.

Nothing will change if she waits a little longer, she reminds herself.

But that’s the point, isn’t it?

Assistant forces the thoughts away with the shove of her hand as she opens the door, then a wince as if there’s really anyone here to listen. Maybe if she were any other person, the dull colours would make her feel worse. But she’s been here before, has made the first step before turning back again, before falling to her knees and letting out a sob.

And nothing changes.

Nothing will.

...

Assistant doesn’t look.

She knows she will, at some point, because the bed in the corner won’t change and the body that lies there has been and still is unmoving. But, for now, she takes the chair next to the bed, glancing down at the table beside her. There’s evidence that people have been here; a purple hair tie that’s most likely Petunia’s, an empty can of soda. A pile of  _ get well soon _ cards, sent in before the news had gotten out.

Assistant fights the urge to rip them up, instead shoving them off of the table. They hardly make a sound as they hit the ground in a flurry of colourful envelopes and too-bright flowers.

It  _ hurts,  _ knowing that, in another world (maybe if Assistant had been smarter, maybe if she got her magic faster, maybe maybe  _ maybe-)  _ there could be a chance that all those  _ get well soon _ s would be just that, instead of some sick reminder that there’s no coming back from this. She won’t get well soon when the money Petunia had managed to gather for the bills is quickly running out, when the doctors won’t be so sympathetic anymore.

Seaweed won’t be  _ here _ much longer, and that’s what finally makes Assistant look at the body on the bed.

She lies there, unmoving. Grey.

So unrecognisable that, for just a moment, Assistant can almost pretend it’s not her.

But then her gaze settles on the slightly awkward bend to her left pinkie finger (she’d broken it when she was younger. A stupid accident, she’d said,) the way her hair falls across her face just so, the way her face is frozen in an expression-

Just like it had been that night. Eyes wide open yet  _ blank, _ mouth open in a soundless scream because her wand was bending and  _ bending _ and-

_ Snap. _

In that moment Assistant can finally  _ feel _ it, the way light had burst from the cracks in Seaweed’s skin, burning at Assistant’s hands until she’d been forced to let go, blinding her from the sight of her best friend-

Her best friend  _ dying. _

Freezing and crumbling into a grey  _ nothing,  _ before the wandless woman had swept in and dragged her off. Assistant had been too shocked to reach out.

But now, reliving the moment, she can’t feel the anger flooding over the other  _ her _ ’s expression in relentless waves. She doesn’t feel the pure  _ hatred _ when she looks back up at Cakegirl, grinning wickedly with the broken wand still in that golem’s hand.

The only thing she can feel is the way the air _ breaks  _ with the realisation.

Because she’s dead.

_ Seaweed’s _ dead.

And Assistant would do anything to make it a lie.

**Author's Note:**

> oof.  
> yell at me on tumblr @stratoverse :'))


End file.
